Oil companies and electricity providers in Samoa say they would like to produce more coconut oil to lower fuel prices but they just can't process it on a large enough scale.
Copra is the meat of a coconut which is processed into coconut oil and the managing director of the Pacific Oil Company, Etuale Sefo, says they aren't getting enough coconuts to meet export demands.
He says they have the facility to process significantly more coconuts and in-turn increase exports.
"For example we're getting something like 100-120 tonnes of copra per week at the moment but the capacity of oil mill is much more than that, we can process double or even triple that volume of copra."
The head of the Electric Power corporation in Samoa says it's also a lack of specialist machinery which prevents his company from using more coconut oil in diesel fuel mixes.
